


An Apparition Not Looking Up

by Estirose



Category: Kamen Rider Drive
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 02:50:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11027055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estirose/pseuds/Estirose
Summary: Kiriko remembers a conversation with Chase as she prepares to deal the final blow to the monster that is her father.





	An Apparition Not Looking Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kandrona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kandrona/gifts).



Chase's axe was heavy. Kiriko had never picked it up before that morning, never thought that she would, actually, get a chance to end the nightmare that had been her father. But his Driver-like form just lay there, vulnerable to anything she might want to do. She hefted the axe up as Banno spoke.

"Kiriko, my daughter. I was mistaken. You are of far greater value than I had ever hoped for, far more than Gou-"

"Shut up!" She yelled, thinking of the previous night, of why she was there, holding an axe over his head as if it would fix all of her issues. He had almost fatally injured Chase, and how her friend was in one piece she wasn't sure. She had taken Chase's own Signal Chaser, placed it into her own belt, and fought with his form. "Shut up!" 

"Kiriko-" He had no right to say her name, use it as if they had been truly father and daughter, rather than creator and creation of sorts.

It really didn't matter that she was dehenshined, and was holding the axe up with her good arm, the one he hadn't broken more than once in one of his fits of rage. Her mind filled with the conversation she'd had with Chase the preivous night.

Gou had been far too injured to fight, as she'd found out when Chase had carried him in, barely conscious. Chase stood by her, silently supportive, and she was glad of the company. Rinna was busy with her last adjustments, making sure that Gou's belt was in one piece for Kiriko's use tomorrow. They were both confident that Kiriko could use the the belt, given that there was no reason that she shouldn't been able to use the Drive Driver in the first place.

"Thank you, Chase," she'd said. He was the one who had caught Gou falling over, and it was obvious that Gou had been hiding an injury far too severe to be fighting, being the idiot that he sometimes was. Gou hadn't wanted her to fight, but Banno was her father too. She deserved this chance to stop him once and for all, as much as Gou did. She knew what her father had been like, before, and she wasn't going to let him win.

"You are welcome," he'd said solemnly. "No matter how hard he tried to hide it, I could tell he was not fit to fight. Our battle tomorrow is crucial. I would not risk him in his current condition."

But he would risk her, she'd noted. They would all risk each other if it was to save the world.

"Nor would I." Chase didn't quite understand family, but he could understand the bond the two of them had as siblings. Slightly. "Chase, could you go over what we know about his capabilities?"

Her father's capabilities, but she would never call that monster her father, and it felt strange to refer to him by his surname. Her mother had taken back her own name in the divorce, given it to her kids, just so that they could escape being his by default.

Chase had nodded, and started talking. She took notes, because she hadn't fought him before. At least she knew what the various bikes she could use, and Dead Heat if she really had to. All she knew was that her father had to die this time, along with his newest creation. She rubbed at her long-healed arm, a reminder that for the good of the world, they had to succeed.

"Kiriko," Chase had said finally, "This is your biological father. I have seen Shinnosuke behave improperly when it came to his family, and Gou as well."

"I remember him, but I'll be careful." She'd wished she'd told Gou about him sooner, just so that her idiot brother didn't think he had to protect her. She wasn't defenseless.

And now she could protect him, like she always should have. Even if it killed her - and it might, though she would try to stay alive - she'd make sure that he could continue.

"You need to monitor your emotions. Gou frequently lets his emotions get the better of him." He had regarded her with no expression on his face, but she understood. In some ways, she and Chase were family and he a little brother. All of the Roidmudes were, to some strange extent, younger siblings that she never got a chance to know before they started fighting humanity.

She'd told Chase, briefly, that she was into girls, not guys. He'd asked if she wanted him to become female for her. He could, he'd assured her. Then she'd had to explain to him that her care for him was less a desire to be with him than an older sister's duty.

Besides, even if he did, even if she didn't regard him as a sibling, he'd always be male to her. Her body wouldn't want him.

"I'll try." It hadn't sounded too positive, but she was too tired to sound positive. Besides, her father had to die, there was no question about that. And if she was the one to end his life, it would be justice for her brother, the Roidmudes her father had corrupted, and everybody who had suffered because of her father. 

She'd grimaced a bit at that. As she'd told Chase, she only had a few good memories of her father, the rest of which weren't pleasant. Memories of her mother scared, her father hurting her if she didn't do what he said instantaneously and without any question. She couldn't imagine he'd been any nicer to Chase and the other Roidmudes.

"I was created by Krim Steinbert, though I met Banno briefly early on in my existence." Chase's admission had startled her. "Heart confided to me his own experiences, however. They were not pleasant."

"I can imagine. I don't know what happened to Heart," she'd said, and it felt odd referring to the Roidmude she barely knew in any sort of familiar way, "but my father saw us more as experiments than human beings, Gou and I. That's why we both learned to fight, otherwise...." She shook her head. "It's not easy to talk about."

Chase had tensed as she spoke, and she wondered if he felt particularly protective of her.

"We will work together to make sure he is gone," Chase had said finally.

"Thank you Chase," Kiriko had told him. "I wish there was some time to spar, just to practice." Being overconfident could kill her, after all. Even if Chase was there to help her, she didn't want her father to get the best of her.

After all, her father could be overconfident, but he was far from stupid. As much as she fantasized ending his terror, she wasn't going to fall into any of his traps.

"But there is not. Do you wish me to take the lead in our confrontation with him?"

It had been a good question. She had been so little and so defenseless when she'd last encountered her father when he was still alive. He'd broken her arm more than once, leaving it to her mother to explain how the injuries kept happening. It had taken Kiriko's parents' divorce for her to be able to regain her confidence.

There would have been nothing wrong in saying yes. It made far more sense than saying no. She had not fought her father before, and Chase doing the primary attacking might afford her the luxury of figuring out how to make sure the being who had been her father would never injure another being, human or Roidmude, ever again.

"Yes. Thank you, Chase." She'd debated saying more, and finally summoned up the courage to do so. "Do you know why I became a police officer?"

"Neither Gou nor Shinnosuke have confided your reasons to do so." He'd turned to her, obviously interpreting what she'd said as a request for information.

"It's because of my father. I wanted to save others from people like him." She certainly hadn't expected to be physically fighting him - or the electronic archive of him that was certainly just as evil. "I didn't expect to be fighting him to save the world."

That was what she was doing, wasn't it, along with Chase and Shinnosuke?

"I will assist you in any capacity you need me to provide." Chase had been trying to just state the obvious, she was sure, but it reassured her. She wasn't alone. She wouldn't be fighting her father with no assistance, she wasn't his scared little daughter any longer.

But there hadn't been anything she could say to Chase. Nothing too overconfident, nothing that revealed how frightened she felt. There was nothing he could do to reassure her. No, the only thing they could do together - after she, at least, got some sleep - was to finally end this nightmare together, help save the world from the monster she had once, never affectionately, called her father.

She had become a police officer, as she'd told Chase, to protect people from those like her father. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was to finally bring justice to that little scared girl and her oblivious little brother, to the Roidmudes, to everyone who had been terrorized by them. It wasn't emotion running wild. It was something that needed to be done.

Kiriko shook her head slightly to banish the memories, and then looked down at the pleading Driver that had once been her father. She could see the expressionless face, though she doubted he was really looking up at her as her. Just a person to fool that happened to carry his genes, a possible tool.

He was still pleading, but she ignored it, bringing the axe down on his form and watching it spark. There was a certain anticlimax to it, this destruction of her father's last form, and she found herself collapsing next to him, Chase's axe forgotten.

She was still there when Chase crawled up to her, still in ragged shape, and she wished that she could repair him on the spot. But she couldn't. All she could do was give him a small smile, knowing that even if her father hadn't been brought to true justice, at least he would no longer be there to cause harm.

With Chase's silent help, she pulled out her phone and called Tomari and the others. It was finally the end, and maybe once she recovered from her injuries, she could truly, finally heal.


End file.
